K-12 Education’s Post

Amy Baldwin & Laurie Hazard have some great suggestions for how we can support students to address procrastination! Check out our latest blog and their fantastic video! Innovative Educators #timemanagement #studentsuccess #procrastination

"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Laura Numeroff is an American children's book describing a cascade of events that unfold once a person gives a mouse a cookie - milk, self care, tidying up, napping, to name a few things. What would the story be like if we asked #students, #educators, #administrators to describe schooling like this? I haven't tested the idea, but I think it's a great way to understand the priorities of different stakeholders in education and specifically the cause-effect they experience which is often unnoticed by others. For example, one of the things I often heard during parent teacher meetings was "The main thing is to do your work, and hand it in on time." The phrase isn't wrong, and there's often a big backstory to "doing work on time". For adults, most learning in school is about showing what we know by completing a task and recording our thoughts in the interim which is taken as a proxy for our learning process. The flip side of this for students is very different. If you give a student 10 questions for homework, they will probably have some of their own. So, they might find their notebook to consult their notes. Then they might call or text a friend in another class period for their take. They might ask an adult to help out. Still wondering, the student might go to the Internet and get some answers to complete their work. But their questions about your 10 questions weren't answered. So they might not be ready for the lesson tomorrow. The student might work on other tasks hoping for a moment of clarity to strike. That moment may not happen. The work might be done, but it may not reflect their learning. The next day, the 10 questions might turn into a great conversation about other ideas. The teacher may have some questions of their own! #learning 

The edtech world needs more experts on assessments to support and guide educators and district leaders in applying research around assessments and assessment culture into practice. "We can view different components of assessment culture on a continuum, ranging from less supportive to more supportive of teaching and learning. Imagine a school in which students talk about assessment as a process that confirms whether they are smart (or not). Compare that to another school where students see assessment as a process that identifies strengths and weaknesses that inform what they do next. We know that students who adopt a growth mindset are better equipped to tackle challenging work, deal with learning setbacks and have agency over their learning. In other words, using formative assessment as a tool for learning fosters this growth mindset in students. Great collaboration with the Center for Assessment!

It feels like we are winding down for summer now, especially with year 11 being in and out for exams. However, if we start slipping with our standards we run the risk of having an 8 week battle of poor behaviour from the other year groups…. So, my plan of action is to amend my teaching to reduce the amount of teacher talk, increase the amount of independent work that students are completing, and building time into lessons to go around having conversations one on one with students, checking their folders, live marking their work and most importantly showing them that I have not stopped working for summer, so neither should they be. As an example, my year 7s have been learning about energy and efficiency. In our last lesson I modelled and taught them how to do those calculations in my usual teacher led way. Today however, the whole lesson was student led. I gave them loads of example questions with different contexts, unit conversions, rearranging of the formula and set them to work. I did model a few under the visualiser for students who missed last lesson and to support my weaker students. However, the majority got on with it straight away and worked independently in a calm way (with chatter at a relatively a low noise level 😂) This freed me up to walk around the room, helping individual students, look through their folders and check their work. I loved it! How do you teach at this time of year? Do you keep it the same, or change it up? Let me know below! 👇 #ukteacher #teacherlife #scienceteacher #teacheruk #teacherworkload #teaching #teachingideas #teachingtips

If you notice that your students have been lacking motivation and interest, use these strategies to help re-engage your students and get your class back on track!

Just want to share that I run a policy of #FlexibleDeadlines, no questions asked, up until the final day of my courses. 🗓️ Many faculty are scared that this will encourage students to fall behind or make a lot of extra work for themselves at the end of the term. Only 3/50 students had late work to submit in the final week of my courses that just finished. This is very typical. Students do not want to fall behind if they can avoid it. Students do not want to have to complete a ton of work at the end of the course if they can avoid it. Flexible deadlines do not encourage students to fall behind or make more work for profs. If anything, they do the OPPOSITE. What I have found is that flexible deadlines decrease students' stress which makes them MORE likely to submit and submit on time. Flexible deadlines have been one of the BEST things I've done in my teaching and are one of my strongest examples of #Mutualism: good for my students and good for me. This practice is grounded in the science of effective teaching and learning. I can't recommend it strongly enough. #HigherEd #FacDev

Think teaching's easy? Think again! ❌ Educators in the US work long hours, juggling grading, planning, and meetings. Dive into Scanning Pens newsletter for insights into the challenges teachers face.🍎💻 #TeacherChallenges #EducatorLife #TeachingTruths

Teachers, help your students to overcome procrastination! Check out our blog on five proven strategies to overcome procrastination and foster academic success. https://lnkd.in/gn4SgFME #TeacherTips #StudentSuccess #SchoolDatebooks

I really like this idea of creating an “assessment culture.” Students and teachers should feel comfortable collaborating on the process of monitoring learning, evaluating progress, and agreeing on actionable instructional goals. This would help create a feeling of agency over one’s learning (and teaching) and help develop the important growth mindset. An assessment culture would help integrate the critical information that formative and summative tests can provide in a more explicit and positive way. Interesting article—take a minute to read it! 🙂

New teachers are in hot demand, and the onboarding and support that principals give new teachers can make or break their entry into the profession. Here's a few examples.